


The Devil's Prophet

by RobberBaroness



Category: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Genre: 30 Day Dark Fandom Challenge, Alternate Universe- Southern Gothic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She came to the wicked preacher to help her save lost souls, but soon it was her own soul she had to fight for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil's Prophet

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Southern gothic AU.

They should have hanged the preacher, but they just locked him up instead. Sure, there were lots of things said about him, but folks will talk about anything in a small town. Even after he stabbed that poor man they still wanted to think the best of him. Poor Will, with his talk of prophecy and the knife stuck in his gut, said he’d done far worse things, but if they’d believed him the entire town would have torn itself up in madness and desperate repentance. Those sumptuous meals the preacher had served to the hungry, juicy meats even when the cattle were dying, always so generous to his town, conjuring feasts like Jesus did from fish and loaves- those meals were sacred even if the preacher no longer was. Good, honest Christian charity was hard to come by these days, and shouldn’t be looked down upon no matter its source.

Clarice, the rancher’s girl, thought otherwise. Still, she was the one to visit his cell.

“I wonder if you’re the devil,” she told him, but that wasn’t what interested him enough to reply. He didn’t care what she thought he was; he cared that she knew what he’d done and still came to visit. And yes, he cared that she was pretty, perhaps a sweet young thing he could have talked into bed with words of god in the good old days. But such a sweet young thing would have avoided him like a disease after his arrest.

“There was a man killed,” Clarice said. “I think he’s buried somewhere on the ranch. My guardian didn’t do it; it just wouldn’t occur to him that it was a thing to do. I want to know who did.”

“You know a good deal, Clarice,” said the preacher in return. “Are you clever, or does your imagination run away with you? I want to know.”

She was silent, and he smiled like the devil she was sure he was.

“Clarice. How can I help you if you won’t help me? More importantly, why should I want to?”

She only walked away that day. It would take more visits before she cracked and told him that it was the screaming that had tipped her off. First she thought it was the lambs they slaughtered, the ones she couldn’t save, but after listening to it long enough, she knew it to be a human scream. The cries for salvation from men and women being gutted like animals, coming to rest in her mind because no one else would hear them. It was a good system for making sure no one went unmourned and unprayed for, but it made it hard for her to sleep.

***

“I’m a prophet,” she would eventually tell the preacher by way of an answer.

“Just like Will Graham. From what I can see, prophecy is a short-lived community role.”

“You broke Will Graham. Broke him over your knee, treated him like he wasn’t even human. But I know what you are, and if I can’t talk to god-”

“-then you’ll be a prophet of the devil? You impress me, Clarice. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

And he told her names, reasons, links to the voices she heard screaming at night.

***

Oh, the devil has a sweet voice! Sometimes he deceives and sometimes he tells a truth that will break you to hear. They say he was once an angel, and still he speaks with an angel’s tongue, and sees with an angel’s eyes. He hungers for flesh to feed upon and life to hold close to him, to know it is within his power whether they live or die.

But Clarice, the girl he had mocked for being poor white trash- he relished only her life, though he sent her in the path of killers. He knew she would emerge with her heart still beating, though he also knew the screaming at night would not stop. Who better than the devil knows that sin never ends, no matter how many sinners are revealed.

“My prophet,” he said. “I wonder- if I were not behind these bars, would you dare let me into your life?”

“One of us would have to change, preacher. It wouldn’t be me, and I don’t know if it could ever be you.”

“Never.”

The smile of the snake crawled inside the prophet’s mind, and she vowed never to accept his offers. As she walked from the dingy jail that could not have held him if he did not allow it, she took in the hot country sun and wondered how much her vow was worth. But it was hers, and that made it worthy of something.

That night, the preacher escaped from prison. Clarice knelt by her bed and prayed, to god and the angels and even Satan’s demons if they would hear her, to protect and keep her soul from the devil.


End file.
